<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>For Ivy Climbed Her Crumbling Walls by thegoldisgone</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23445859">For Ivy Climbed Her Crumbling Walls</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegoldisgone/pseuds/thegoldisgone'>thegoldisgone</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>RuPaul's Drag Race RPF</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - College/University, F/F</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 13:41:23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>6,687</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23445859</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegoldisgone/pseuds/thegoldisgone</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Trixie Mattel learned the hard way that her status as star pupil of Harvard's Russian Department would come with an unexpected responsibility.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Trixie Mattel/Katya Zamolodchikova</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>54</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. A Tale of Two Languages</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Tell me again, why did you choose Russian? Of all the languages you sort of, uhh, screwed yourself over.”</p>
<p>Trixie rolled her eyes at the comment, but responded nonetheless. “Because young, naive Trixie wanted to be <i>different</i> so she gave up French for the sake of higher learning.”</p>
<p>“So you’re saying that you’re a martyr?”</p>
<p>“Shut up, bitch, you’re already bilingual.” Trixie threw a nearby scrunchie at her friend Kim for the sarcastic remark, no matter how warranted. “My pain and suffering falls on deaf ears.”</p>
<p>“You act like you aren’t fully the best student in your class. Stop being so dramatic.”</p>
<p>“<i>Please</i>, just let me wallow and complain.”</p>
<p>“All that blonde hair must be pressing on your brain,” Kim smirked, “or maybe all those cosmetics finally seeped their way into your cerebral cortex.”</p>
<p>“I’m sorry, why are we friends again?”</p>
<p>Kim laughed and hopped off Trixie’s bed, making her way over to the desk where her companion was three pages into Crime and Punishment in all its original Russian glory. She took a look at Trixie’s foreign cursive notes and the strange Cyrillic on the page and laughed, “Yeah, I can’t help you. Korean would have probably been easier than whatever the hell that is.”</p>
<p>Accepting the taunts thrown her way, Trixie buried her face in the pages and groaned. “It’s a little late for that now, Kimberley,” she replied with her best white-girl-from-the-valley impression. “We’re seniors, I think the time to switch languages has long passed.”</p>
<p>“Well then,” Kim patted her lovingly on the back, “better get reading!” She cackled and gathered her belongings before continuing, “I promised my mom I would skype her before bed, but if you need moral support you know where to find me.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, two floors down, usually in a food coma.”</p>
<p>“Oh, NOW who’s the bitch?”</p>
<p>“Still you!”</p>
<p>Their banter came to its natural end as Kim gave her the finger and departed for the grueling, two story decent home. Trixie sighed as she closed the door behind her friend, grateful for the return to solitude. It surprised most people to learn of Trixie’s preference for personal space. While her bubbly attitude and wildly eye-catching attire screamed extrovert, she found herself counting down the minutes until she was alone again. She loved Kim, and loved every second they spent bullying each other, but her social tolerance was running thin with hours of work still on her plate. </p>
<p> Trixie stood up from the hard, wooden chair and twisted her back, hearing the small pops from her maligned vertebrae. She may have complained heartily to Kim, but she wouldn't have her life any other way. A lot of college students found the transition to dorm living difficult, but Trixie took to the change like a fish to water. She was lucky having a room all to herself, and although it was a small space, it was hers. There were no siblings sharing closets, no mothers blowing stale smoke into the air, and the bed, albeit tiny, was all her own. It was a topic that her college mandated therapist loved to unpack, Trixie’s need to control every aspect of her surroundings, but there was only so much she could introspect with twenty more pages of Russian to comprehend before class the next morning.</p>
<p>While Trixie couldn’t cook a meal to save her life, the small pink microwave atop her pink minifridge was enough to keep her going when she lacked the funds to order takeout, and tonight was one of those nights. She threw in a hot pocket and grinned knowing she was just two minutes away from processed, cheesy goodness. As stressed as she was thinking about the workload piled on her desk, her pink appliances were so ridiculously childish that she had to smile. She often looked around her room in astonishment at her commitment to a brand. No item in her room was untouched by the pastel pink color scheme, save for the standard college furniture that stuck out like a sore thumb, but she made it work. Between Barbie posters and pictures of California beaches were tiny reminders of home, little chachkis she often threatened to throw away but could never bring herself to let go. Even those memories were surrounded by pink frames, as if she had sugar coated the complicated memories with rose colored glasses to save herself from the harsh reality she had left behind in the move.</p>
<p>The microwave beeped before Trixie could lose herself too intensely to the distress she felt after a night of caffeine influx and no sleep. She took a look at the nuclear hot dinner and only then remembered that she hadn’t eaten since breakfast. It was hard to take care of herself when school was her one and only priority.</p>
<p>“Not bad for a girl with no talent,” she muttered to an empty room, laughing at her own joke.</p>
<p>The imposter syndrome hit a little early tonight, but it was a routine Trixie knew well. How does a midwestern bumpkin stumble out of Wisconsin and into Harvard? Somehow she managed a place in the pinnacle of wealth and privilege, and the thought still shook her to her core. She remembered moving across the country like it was yesterday, how her peers walked onto campus with their cute suburban families unloading their cute suburban suitcases, while she huffed up four flights of stairs alone with two duffle bags and a backpack. It was a stark reminder of where she came from and how different her world was from the one she chose to enter. The ivy covered walls of Cambridge oozed wealth like she had never seen, and the stench of that money reeked like smoke from her mother’s cigarettes. It spilled onto her clothes and wrapped around her hair like bleach, but in a strangely intoxicating way she couldn’t help but huff those fumes as she rose to the head of her class. She elbowed her way through trust fund babies and children of international diplomats to earn a spot at the top, and there was nothing she wouldn’t do to keep that seat at the table.</p>
<p>Another quick microwavable meal, this time a familiar bowl of bright yellow Easy mac, and two hours of homework later, Trixie looked at the clock and realized just how late it was. It wasn’t unusual for her to get three or four hours of sleep a night, and it seemed that tonight wouldn’t be the exception. Her school year’s resolution seemed simple, but it appeared that achieving a reliable sleep schedule would have to wait for another day. She popped a melatonin in her mouth, grateful for the aid when restful hours had come so few and far between, and made quick work of her careful skincare routine. It wasn't long before she slid under the covers on top of her cheap mattress and was struck with usual fears of postgraduate plans. One more year of school until she had to really figure her life out, and the thought alone paralyzed her until the medicinal hormone began to work its magic. </p>
<p>“One more year,” she whispered to herself. “One more fucking year.”</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>“Трикси, слушай меня!”</p>
<p>Trixie snapped her head up to see her Russian professor looking down at her sternly. Tanya meant well, but her stern nature was incredibly intimidating, especially when Trixie was struggling to keep up with the lecture.</p>
<p>“Oh, простите.”</p>
<p>She had drifted off momentarily, already thinking of her next three assignments for other classes that needed to get done by the end of the day. As much as she complained about Russian’s difficulty, Trixie thrived when she was put to the test academically. To say the work was exhausting would be an understatement, her Virgo sun loved every second of challenging tasks thrown her way. Her friends often laughed when Trixie referred to her professors by their first names, but that was fairly custom in Russian culture, and with the language department so small it was easy to befriend and get to know the teachers. </p>
<p>Easily Trixie’s oldest professor by a long shot, Tanya was also her most excitable teacher. She often got distracted with tangents of her youth in the USSR, sharing stories of breadlines and самиздат records smuggled in by black market westerners. As a nervous freshman, Trixie frequented Tanya’s office hours for help with difficult verb conjugations and foreign sentence structure, and like any proper бабушка, Tanya plied her with tea and печенье while recounting anecdotes from her immigration to the US. She even shared stories of her sister back in Moscow and her niece who she missed terribly. It was incredibly heartwarming to hear stories of a family bond she never had, as if she could live vicariously through her tales. Trixie listened intently, and found that Russian hospitality was not too dissimilar from her experience in the midwest. It brought her comfort as so much around her felt confusing and unstable.</p>
<p>Tanya had a soft spot for Trixie after their many meetings, but she was still quite hard on her in class because she knew there was potential for her pupil to really shine. So when given the chance to test her with a particularly tricky question, Tanya pushed Trixie to excel.</p>
<p>Like any student she had her missteps, but Trixie recovered with ease and shared her thoughts on the protagonist’s motivations for his upcoming crimes. Four hours of sleep was worth the proud smile Tanya cast her way at the grammatically correct sentences leaving Trixie’s unsure lips.</p>
<p>“Отлично, Трикси. Okay, chapter two for next week, yes? More questions to come! Have a fun and safe weekend.”</p>
<p>The small class began to gather their things and head for the door, but Tanya asked Trixie to stay behind. “I have a question for you, умница.”</p>
<p>Trixie smiled at the diminutive nickname Tanya had gifted her, a term of endearment meaning “smart girl” that she never would have received from her own mother. Yet another topic to unpack in therapy. </p>
<p>She always spoke in english if the conversation was important to make sure nothing was lost in translation. “Of course, did I forget an assignment? I was sure I turned everything in.”</p>
<p>“No, no, your assignments are perfect, as always,” Tanya smiled knowingly, “it is actually a favor I have to ask of you. If you are too busy there is no problem, but you are my brightest student and I trust your help.”</p>
<p>At this point Trixie was beyond intrigued. What could a professor possibly need from her? “Please, ask away.”</p>
<p>Tanya sat back down at the round table and Trixie did the same, her pink backpack slung over one shoulder. “My niece is coming to America next week. Very bright girl, too bright for her own good, always getting into mischief and causing trouble. You remember me mentioning her, yes?”</p>
<p>Trixie nodded, chuckling softly at some of the stories she was told by her professor. “This is the niece who accidentally caused a fire in the biology department, yes?”</p>
<p>Tanya shook her head in amusement before continuing, “Yes, that niece. My sister decided that a change of scenery after finishing university could help to shift her perspective, and the Russian department happens to be in need of an intern to help file paperwork and tutor students.”</p>
<p>“I understand that,” Trixie agreed, “but how can I help?”</p>
<p>Tanya shifted in her seat, clearly anxious to ask so much of her student, “I was hoping you would be willing to show her around campus, introduce her to other students, help her feel not so isolated in this brand new environment. She has not been to America in a very long time; I do not want her to feel so frazzled. She has an anxiety problem.”</p>
<p>Trixie couldn’t help but feel that this poor girl’s aunt was oversharing her niece’s mental health issues, but she was in no place to judge after her introduction to cognitive behavioral therapy. “Of course, Tanya. I can do my best to be a stand-in tour guide. That’s not a problem at all.”</p>
<p>Her professor sighed and squeezed Trixie’s arm in relief, going off in Russian about how grateful she was for her help. Trixie smiled sweetly, knowing the people pleaser in her had won once again. She really didn’t have time to help an immature college grad get acclimated to Boston, but she knew that kissing ass got her further than anyone would care to admit. If showing this Russian girl around Harvard Square got her into good graces with the professor in charge of her major GPA, then by all means, Trixie was ready to play the cheerleader.</p>
<p>“She will arrive next weekend and stay at my house, but she will likely accompany me to class where you will meet her, хорошо?”</p>
<p>“Absolutely! I mean, хорошо. See you next Monday.”</p>
<p>“Thank you again, Trixie. You are angel in the disguise!”</p>
<p>Her teacher’s slight misuse of American idioms always brought a smile to Trixie’s face, no matter how frustrated she was by her carefully planned schedule being uprooted by an unexpected interruption.</p>
<p>The blonde made her way down the stairs and out the building where she met Kim waiting for her in their usual spot. She was animatedly typing something on her phone when Trixie interrupted her. “Alright, bitch. What’s for lunch?”</p>
<p>“Took you long enough! You’re eight minutes late.”</p>
<p>“Well sooooory that class ran late and my professor needed to chat.”</p>
<p>“Ooh, is Miss Mattel in trouble?”</p>
<p>Trixie slapped her friend’s arm as they made their way through the center of campus towards the restaurant hub downtown. “Fuck off, I’ve never been in trouble in my life. She just had a favor to ask.”</p>
<p>“A favor? Let me guess, you said yes no matter what because you’re a teacher’s pet?”</p>
<p>“Ugh,” she fake swooned, “you know me so well.”</p>
<p>“You’re predictable as hell, what can I say.” Kim stumbled on the edge of the sidewalk in a predictably clumsy way, and Trixie all but managed to hold back her laughter.<br/>
“So,” Kim prodded, “what did she want?”</p>
<p>“Apparently her troubled niece is coming to Boston for a year and she wants me to show her around, help her get used to a new city.”</p>
<p>“She... wants you to be an unpaid babysitter?”</p>
<p>Trixie rolled her eyes and groaned, “Honestly? That’s basically it. It’s not the end of the world. I can rearrange a few things to make time, and Russian takes up most of my week anyway, so I doubt Tanya will care if I turn in a few things late to make time for her precious niece.”</p>
<p>Kim laughed, “Oh, please. You wouldn’t turn an assignment in late if the fucking world was ending. We all know it.”</p>
<p>“Fuck OFF, I can be a bad kid too.”</p>
<p>“Well,” Kim wiggled her eyebrows suggestively, “maybe this niece will rub some of her troubled ways off on you when she gets here.”</p>
<p>Trixie blushed bright red under her foundation. “Will you shut up? My professor’s niece is not going to rub <i>anything</i> on me. She’s Russian, she’d probably spit on me if she knew I was a dyke.”</p>
<p>The pair laughed off the remark as they stopped in their favorite poke shop for lunch. They settled into a comfortable silence as they thought about their food options, but after Kim’s raunchy suggestion, Trixie’s mind was racing. She didn’t even know this girl’s name, what she looked like, or literally anything about her other than her possible anxiety disorder and her propensity to light things on fire that are meant to not be burned. There was no point getting lost in scenarios that would never come to fruition, it was a hopeless venture. </p>
<p>Trixie had resigned herself to dying alone. It sounded dramatic when she stated it so emphatically, but the thought didn’t scare her the way it did those she shared the idea with. She took comfort in her priorities, choosing school and work over any semblance of a social life. There had been hook-ups, of course. The first girl she ever kissed (and the first girl she ever fucked) lived in the dorm directly adjacent to the one Trixie occupied now. Other sexual encounters happened with people whose names she couldn’t even recall, either from too much alcohol or a lack of caring. Trixie’s priority was success, and to her, success meant graduating top of her class and getting a job that didn’t pay $12.75 an hour. She wanted to move to Malibu and live in a condo on the beach with a cute dog or maybe a bird. She wanted a pink Jeep Cherokee, designer clothes and red bottom shoes, and she wasn’t afraid to admit it. Some called her shallow, but Trixie called herself driven.</p>
<p>No woman, least of all a troubled miscreant from Russia, would stop her from achieving that life. Trixie had a plan, and she was going to follow it.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Hope you enjoyed! I don't plan to have a regular upload schedule so please bear with me. I'll include all the pertinent Russian translations at the bottom of every chapter (unless they are translated in text), so you all are in for a little Russian lesson. Google translate helps with most of these so please correct me if you're a native speaker and notice some errors!</p><p>-</p><p>Трикси, слушай меня! - Trixie, listen to me!</p><p>Oh, простите. - Oh, sorry.</p><p>печенье - cookies</p><p>Отлично, Трикси. - Very good, Trixie.</p><p>хорошо - okay/good</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Not-So-Happy Little Trees</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Trixie huffed and threw her backpack onto the bed, watching it bounce from the mattress to the floor with her poor aim. “Well, fuck,” she sighed to herself.</p>
<p>This was just the icing on the cake of a truly awful day. It was one of those days where you wake up and everything feels heavier, you take one step out the door and life reminds you why you shouldn’t have left the house. Like most awful days it started with a nightmare. She had been running through a nondescript summer camp Friday the 13th style being chased by a machete wielding murderer. After years of watching horror movies like they were casual Sunday morning cartoons, those sorts of dreams usually didn’t scare Trixie, but this time she took a hard right and fell face first into a lake of failed assignments. She was floundering and gasping for air while C-’s laughed in her face. </p>
<p>Just before it felt as though the anthropomorphic papers could fill her lungs, Trixie jolted awake with a panicked intake of breath. She took in her surroundings and felt her muscles release from their tensed positions. <i>God, what kind of moron still has nightmares about bad grades,</i> she thought to herself. Here she was, twenty-one years old and still having stress dreams when the lowest grade she’d ever gotten on a test was a B-, and even then Trixie believed there was a marking error on her teacher’s part. </p>
<p>She reached bleary eyed for her phone buried somewhere under her pillow. She pressed the home button and quickly realized her brightness was still turned to full intensity. “Jesus <i>fuck,</i>” she whisper yelled as she fumbled to turn down the light.</p>
<p>The phone revealed only four minutes until her seven o’clock alarm was meant to go off, which further irritated the exhausted blonde as she had been praying for at least another hour of sleep. She wasn’t ready to start the day, but was anyone? As much as Trixie loved school the glitter and shine of the Ivy League’s fanciful exterior was beginning to wear off. She now saw past the ornate gates and prestigious hundred year old buildings, revealing the nasty underbelly of her seemingly untouchable institution. She wanted out, but standing between her and another day closer to the end was the bane of all liberal arts majors’ existence: general requirement classes. Trixie had practically finished her Russian major, but apparently part of a “well-rounded” education included taking courses she had no business learning, all for the sake of some idea of intellectual balance. Why was a Business major forced to take The Art of Sketching 101? Trixie couldn’t draw for shit, but that elusive art credit was the only thing preventing her from graduating, and she had put it off long enough, and she had heard this particular art class was a guaranteed A, but it seemed her peers had underestimated just how much she struggled to draw a straight line.</p>
<p>Trixie groaned as she rolled out of bed, stretching her arms out until she could feel the muscle fibers plead for relief. She flicked on the coffee maker that Kim so often teased her for, cause, like, <i>who the hell has a coffee maker in their dorm room?</i> Trixie did, of course. She was the model student, a high-functioning caffeine addict who followed the rules and avoided fraternity parties like the plague, but sometimes all that pent up perfection bubbled too close to the edge of the pot, threatening to spill out and wreak havoc on the flames coaxing her steady fire. Some days she just wanted to give herself an undercut and join a biker gang. </p>
<p>
  <i>That’s something normal lesbians think about doing, right?</i>
</p>
<p>She brushed off the thought and quickly threw on a more casual look than what she would normally wear, knowing that she would be elbows deep in charcoals and pencil dust for the next three hours. As she pulled a loose fitting band t-shirt over her head, tucking it into the tight blue jeans that hugged her hips like a second skin, she couldn’t help but start planning an outfit for her big day tomorrow.</p>
<p>It wasn’t meant to be a huge deal, but Trixie knew the importance of a first impression. Ever the worrier, she could already see the worst case scenario in her head: She meets this peculiar niece in a slovenly outfit, makes a fool of herself, and the girl runs back to her aunt with a scathing review of her help as a pseudo tour guide. Trixie knew she was being dramatic, but who knows, stranger things have happened, and she wanted to make her professor proud.</p>
<p>She ran her hands along the selection of pink dresses, long and tight skirts, sheer tops and fitted blouses, not having the faintest idea of what would be appropriate to meet this girl wearing. Trixie immediately found herself daydreaming as she sipped her coffee. What would this girl even look like? </p>
<p>She muttered to herself as she plucked clothing items from her closet, “Okay, she’s Russian, so odds are she’s blonde. Are Russians normally tall? What are the odds she’s actually taller than me? Unlikely. Why do I care how tall she is?”</p>
<p>Trixie shook her head and tried to ignore the thoughts that reemerged from her conversation with Kim the week prior. <i>What if she’s hot? </i></p>
<p>The idea refused to stay dormant in Trixie’s imagination. “Am I really that desperate?” She couldn’t help but say it out loud, and answered herself in the same breath, “Apparently yes.”</p>
<p>In a final attempt to keep her heart rate down and thoughts of a hot, Russian, mail order bride out of her head, she popped in her headphones and hit shuffle on her go-to country playlist before making quick work of her hair and makeup. Nothing that a little Reba McEntire couldn’t fix.</p>
<p>On her way out the door she grabbed her long, notched collar coat to combat the frigid New England fall air and started her usual trek to class. It wasn’t long before Trixie was striding through the art building and settling in her usual seat near the front of the class, already anxious to present her work to the professor. They had been tasked with creating a simple nature scene, and Trixie had done her best to recreate the backwoods of Wisconsin, but her lack of skill and patience made the drawing mediocre at best.</p>
<p>“Okay, guys, go ahead and start on your daily journal entry and I’ll come by to discuss your pieces one-on-one.” Ms. Mitchel started the class with her usual introduction, and Trixie had already opened up her booklet and started sketching. Every class they were meant to start with thirty minutes of “creative doodling,” which she could not have found more painfully boring. Unlike many people in the class who had joined with friends, Trixie was alone, and she didn’t mind keeping it that way. Relationships, even platonic ones, were a distraction that she had managed to avoid her first three years here, with the exception of Kim who Trixie loved because she understood that school was Trixie’s priority. She wasn’t here because of her parents’ money, unlike the majority of her peers, which meant she had very little wiggle room when it came to fucking up her studies. If an acquaintance didn’t respect Trixie’s dedication, and, unfortunately, few of them ever did, then she simply moved forward without them. It was a mechanical and cold way of thinking that Kim occasionally chastised her for, but Trixie had bigger concerns, like the condescending smackdown she was about to receive for her 3rd grade level drawing of some autumn trees.</p>
<p>Professor Mitchel, a middle aged white woman without a single remarkable feature to speak of, eventually made her way to Trixie’s station. Trixie was sweating out of every pore, fearing the worst, but masked her anxiety with an excited smile.</p>
<p>“Trixie,” she began in a tone already so patronizing that Trixie was ready to snap her pencil in half, “let’s discuss your drawing.”</p>
<p>“Of course!”</p>
<p>Her professor brought over the canvas she had left in class the previous week. “Well, I love that you chose autumn trees, very topical.” Trixie couldn’t tell if she was trying to be funny, but either way it wasn’t working. “You have a lovely flow to your idea, and I love the golden hour feel of the piece.”</p>
<p>Trixie was waiting for the inevitable <i>‘but’</i> that occurred with every meeting.</p>
<p>“But…”</p>
<p>There it was.</p>
<p>“I think you need to be a little more detail oriented in your shading, and take a little more time when doing the initial sketch so you have cleaner line work instead of trying to cover up mistakes with more color.”</p>
<p>
  <i>Great.</i>
</p>
<p>“You’re so right, professor. I think it’s just hard trying to get the details right. I’m not much of an artist.”</p>
<p>“Well, you’re in an art class, Trixie, try to keep a positive mindset. You can improve if you set your mind to it!”</p>
<p>She was seconds away from pulling out her own hair and using it to build a noose. “I’ll do my best,” she gritted through her teeth.</p>
<p>“Good! That’s the spirit! B+ for the drawing, but you’ll get there.”</p>
<p>Her professor walked away to chastise another poor senior just looking to graduate. Trixie was practically seething. She knew her art was shit, but who the <i>fuck</i> cares about a drawing. Other students were fine with such grades, but Trixie was not. She’d be damned if one mandatory arts class brought down her GPA with only seven months left until graduation.</p>
<p>The rest of class was a blur, as it usually was. Professor Mitchel began their unit on sketching people rather than trees, and then introduced their next major assignment. “Over the next two months, until the end of the semester, I’d like you each to pick one subject for your portrait portfolio. Pick any person you’d like and draw them doing everyday activities, just things they do on a daily basis. Practice different body positions and make sure one of your entries is a facial close up. You need four or five drawings, high quality!”</p>
<p>Trixie’s jaw was slack with shock. Four sketches of actual people, and they had to be good sketches? She was screwed. Goodbye 3.9 GPA. </p>
<p>She packed up her things and did some quick deep breathing exercises to stop the impending explosion. Who the hell was she going to draw, anyway? No family, very few friends, the options were pretty damn limited. </p>
<p>It was almost noon so Trixie knew Kim would be up soon. They could not be more different in their approaches to school, but Trixie found it endearing. She called her friend hoping she would pick up and help her through this crisis.</p>
<p>On the sixth ring Kim’s groggy voice echoed down the line, “hello?”</p>
<p>“Oh, good! You’re up.”</p>
<p>“Well, I’m up now, bitch. What do you want?”</p>
<p>“I’m screwed, that’s what. I’m screwed, Kim! I have to draw four portraits by the end of the semester and they’re all supposed to be really good! How do I learn to draw in like three weeks? This is gonna throw my entire schedule off. I’m going to have to push back my tutoring hours and change my work schedule to three days instead of four and-”</p>
<p>“Trixie,” Kim cut her off, “please, shut up.”</p>
<p>“Kimberley, this is serious.” She heard laughter at the other end of the phone and couldn’t help but smile. “This is NOT funny.”</p>
<p>“Oh, but it is. I love you, girl. You’re gonna be fine. You know Mitchel doesn’t grade below a B, that’s why all the washed up seniors take her class. You’ll be okay.”</p>
<p>“Okay, A) I’m not washed up, you skank, and B) I need an A, Kim. My beautiful GPA is not going to suffer because of a fucking portrait. I need you to be my model.”</p>
<p>“Woah, woah, woah, I haven’t even gotten out of bed yet. This is a lot to process. Are you gonna pay me for my time and anguish?”</p>
<p>“Mmm, nope. I figured you’d help me out because I’m an incredible friend who helped you with all your calculus homework freshman year… and your biology homework sophomore year… and-”</p>
<p>“OKAY, fine. Whatever, I’ll be your model as long as you let me go back to sleep. Some of us are night owls, Trixie.”</p>
<p>“Ugh, you’re my hero. I’ll buy you Thai food tomorrow for dinner. Shit,” Trixie paused, remembering what day it was, “I can’t do dinner tomorrow, I’m meeting that girl and showing her around campus.”</p>
<p>“Oh, yeah, I almost forgot about your hot blind date.”</p>
<p>“There will be no dating, thank you very much.”</p>
<p>“Sure thing! Just remember to let loose a little bit, maybe you’ll actually, I don’t know, make a friend?”</p>
<p>Trixie rolled her eyes as she picked up a salad from the campus center. “But why would I need more friends when I have you?”</p>
<p>“Yeah… <i>just</i> me.”</p>
<p>“Don’t judge me, I’m doing just fine, thank you.”</p>
<p>“Oh, shut up. Need I remind you that the last time we got drunk you spent the whole night telling me how lonely you are?”</p>
<p>Trixie gasped, “I told you never to speak of that again. I trusted you.”</p>
<p>“Go make a friend and I’ll never bring it up again.”</p>
<p>“What if she’s homophobic?”</p>
<p>Kim rustled around as it appeared she was attempting to get out of bed. “Well, if she isn’t homophobic now she will be after she meets you.”</p>
<p>“You are such a bitch,” Trixie scream-laughed as she got back to her dorm. “I’m hanging up to eat my salad, and you should probably, I don’t, do homework or something.”</p>
<p>“You don’t know my life.”</p>
<p>“Yes I do, you have class tonight at 4:30 then you have a-”</p>
<p>“Goodbye, Trixie!”</p>
<p>“Goodbye, loser.”</p>
<p>She hung up and smiled down at her phone. As much as she loved Kim having another friend wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, especially if this new friend could help her translate <i>Crime and Punishment.</i></p>
<p>Trixie got back to her room and watched as her bag fell from the bed where she had thrown it.</p>
<p>“Well, fuck.”</p>
<p>She bent down to grab the discarded backpack when her phone buzzed in her back pocket. She checked the screen to see a new email from her Russian professor. Knowing how soon she would be introduced to this girl made her heart race all over again, which she reprimanded herself for. There was absolutely no reason to be getting worked up over a person she’d never met.</p>
<p>Trixie opened up the email and made quick work of the sweet message, proud that she didn’t need google translate to understand. Tanya had sent her a quick reminder of the details they had already discussed in class the previous day, but added something new at the bottom.</p>
<p><i>Katya is very excited to meet you! </i> </p>
<p>“Katya,” Trixie said out loud into the empty room. She said it again, as if she could possibly mispronounce such a simple name. It was a common name, as were most Russian names. Trixie wondered if it suited this rebellious woman. She guessed that Katya was a year older than her as she had, apparently, already graduated. Katya, the likely blonde, vaguely criminal person who had suddenly uprooted Trixie’s carefully planned schedule. </p>
<p>“Katya,” she said again, for no particular reason this time other than enjoying the sound it made, the way the soft T sound rolled from the tip of her tongue to the back of her throat. She wondered what her name would sound like in this woman’s voice.</p>
<p>“Jesus Christ, you really are lonely.” Trixie shook herself out of whatever sleep deprived stupor led her to such ideas. “It’s not that serious. You might see her once or twice after tomorrow, who knows?”</p>
<p>She felt like she was psyching herself up to ask someone on a date, which was certainly not the case. Trixie knew she was personable and outgoing when she so chose, so tomorrow would be fine. Nothing to worry about. Nothing at all.</p>
<p>But then suddenly it was the next day, and she felt that there were many things to worry about.</p>
<p>The rest of her day and night had been uneventful, and she managed to sleep a fair amount, but the second her eyes snapped open the morning of, she could feel her heartbeat turn arrhythmic. She moved quickly between moods, feeling completely confident and unaffected one moment as she got ready, and then immediately thinking of ways she could screw this up.</p>
<p>“It’s fine,” she murmured to herself in the mirror, “seriously, it’s fine.”</p>
<p>She smoothed her hands down her pink pleated skirt, hoping she looked just nice enough to feel professional for her teacher and just put together enough to impress this girl. And she knew she did, she looked hot as hell. Her hair was quaffed perfectly and tied back with a headband that matched her skirt. The black turtleneck hugged her chest tightly, but not so tight that it was obscene. It was a rare occasion that she donned black as the centerpiece of her outfit, but in an attempt to impress, this was definitely the way to go.</p>
<p>The walk to class felt infinitely longer today. Was she walking slower on purpose or did the entire world seem to be on pause? She was building this up to be a much bigger deal than it should have been. Her whole Sophomore spring had been spent giving tours of this godforsaken place, “What the hell am I worrying about?”</p>
<p>Confidence renewed, time picked up again and so did her music. 9 To 5 never failed to put her in a better mood, and it was exactly the pick-me-up she needed before entering the language building. She normally took the stairs for the sake of health and wellness, but today she didn’t want to look sweaty and disheveled. As she waited for the elevator her phone buzzed in her hand.</p>
<p>
  <i>Have fun with your Russian hooker!</i>
</p>
<p>Trixie rolled her eyes at Kim’s excitement. She was far too thrilled that Trixie was nervous, an emotion she often was too driven to even notice.</p>
<p>The elevator rose three floors, past the Spanish and French classes that Trixie often found herself yearning for. The doors opened and she took a hard right towards the small classroom tucked away from the rest of the office spaces. Usually her teacher was at least five minutes early to class, but today Trixie couldn’t hear her booming voice on the other side of the door. A breath of relief left her lips, grateful that she would have a minute to compose herself before coming face-to-face with her new assigned companion.</p>
<p>She opened the door and saw a few of her classmates getting out their notebooks, chatting about parties on campus and world affairs. Jay, another senior who had, on many occasions, attempted to flirt with Trixie despite her annoyance, was the first to greet her.</p>
<p>“Привет, what’s up?”</p>
<p>“Not much, Jay.”</p>
<p>“Have a fun week?”</p>
<p>Trixie had to restrain from rolling her eyes. “Yup.”</p>
<p>It seemed the frat boy finally got the hint and went back to his previous conversation with Amanda. Finally able to tune out the other distractions, Trixie got out her special Russian journal where she kept lists of new vocabulary and her binder where she kept all of her readings and assignments. Everything was color coded, her Russian work, obviously, claiming the color red. Her journal had an etching of St. Basil’s Cathedral on the cover, a purchase that an excited eighteen year old Trixie had made upon enrolling in the language. She had kept it ever since and the pages were now full of words she now knew by heart.</p>
<p>She looked up at the clock and saw that her professor was now two minutes late. Trixie could count on one hand the number of times Tanya had been late in three years of classes, the only thing different about today was Katya. </p>
<p>Before she could think about her tardiness too much, a familiar voice came echoing down the hallway. The door opened and Tanya came striding through with her usual greeting, “Доброе утро, доброе утро! Как у вас все?” But this time she was followed by a woman so striking Trixie’s mouth was left ajar, waiting to catch flies. This time it felt as though time really did stop.</p>
<p>“Ребятишки, this is my niece, Katya. She will be working in the department this year and tutoring some of the lower level Russian students, that includes grading some of your homework, so be nice to her.”</p>
<p>The other students laughed, but Trixie was still at a loss for words. Nothing could have prepared her for the whirlwind of emotions that would accompany Katya’s arrival. She did, in fact, have blonde hair; it was cropped just below her chin and dramatically swooped to the left side of her head like an 80’s supermodel. Her blue eyes popped like crystals against her clumsy black eye shadow, and her jaw was so sharply defined that her face almost had a masculine appearance. It made Trixie cross her legs tightly under the desk.</p>
<p>“So you gave your niece a job in the department,” Jay probed, “isn’t that nepotism?”</p>
<p>Everyone giggled, knowing the jest was all in good fun. Katya had been scanning the room, and her eyes landed on Trixie. “Well,” she began, “in Russia that is just business as usual.”</p>
<p>
  <i>Her voice. Oh my God, her voice.</i>
</p>
<p>It was deep but also feminine in a way that she couldn’t begin to capture with words. Between Katya’s accent and the tone of her voice, Trixie felt her face burn from the rush of adrenaline. She audibly gulped down the bile that rose in her throat, from shock, excitement, or the same feeling that caused her legs to cross, she wasn’t sure.</p>
<p>Katya’s eyes stayed on her, and if they had met in any other circumstances, Trixie would think she was checking her out.</p>
<p>“Please, go around and introduce yourselves.” Tanya’s voice snapped Trixie out of the haze she had slipped into.</p>
<p>One by one the few students took turns saying their names and class year. It just so happened that Trixie found herself the last to go, waiting patiently until all eyes were trained on her, including those painfully blue ones in the corner of the room.</p>
<p>“Меня зовут Trixie.”</p>
<p>Katya’s expression changed immediately, from one of intrigue to something Trixie couldn’t even begin to place. Her lips shifted into a knowing grin, and her eyes were filled with mirth. It seemed Tanya had informed her niece of who exactly would be leading her around campus, and she seemed delighted that they were now acquainted.</p>
<p>“Приятно познакомиться,” Katya paused, licking her lips, “Trixie.”</p>
<p>She shifted in her seat once again. <i>I’m so fucked. Oh my God, I’m so fucked.</i></p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Hope you guys enjoyed, I'd love to hear your thoughts/feelings/concerns/hopes/wishes in the comments.</p>
<p>Stay safe.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>Привет - Hello</p>
<p>Доброе утро, доброе утро! Как у вас все? - Good morning, good morning! How are you all?</p>
<p>Ребятишки - Kids</p>
<p>Меня зовут Trixie - My name is Trixie</p>
<p>Приятно познакомиться - Nice to meet you</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>